


scorch their wings with glory

by daekie



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, F/F, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Body Modification, tagged f/f because ao3 doesn't really have a tag for f/nb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daekie/pseuds/daekie
Summary: In one universe, agent Grey dies in Black's arms and it drives her mad, too focused to acknowledge the grief she has to accept; it haunts her until her death.This isn't that universe.  (Or: what if agent Black died instead?)





	scorch their wings with glory

**Author's Note:**

> _Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;_  
>  _What silly beggars they are to blunder in_  
>  _And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame—_  
>  _No, no, not that,—it's bad to think of war,_  
>  _When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;_  
>  _And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad_  
>  _Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts_  
>  _That drive them out to jabber among the trees._  
>  — _Repression of War Experience_ , Siegfried Sassoon

In one universe -

In one universe, Grey is the one who offers Elro their comforts, who is close enough to be the unknowing target - in one universe, Grey dies in Black’s arms screaming, their blood rebelling against the insides of their own body, and there is no _time_.  It drives her mad, or close enough it doesn’t matter; Madelyn Binoche spends her last months almost too angry to acknowledge grief.  There is no peace for her.  
  
In another universe, Black has a rare moment of compassion, and in her death throes she pulls Elro into the afterlife with her, others watching in horror; in a third, Elro shakes too badly with nerves and drops the syringe, and in that moment none of them die.  (They still die later, when Chrome’s plot comes to fruition and when the Penance comes for Elro’s family because letting Robin do what she has done is still unforgivable; but in that moment, in that place, none of them are killed.)  
  
This is none of those worlds.

* * *

White stared over Black’s shoulder, presumably unblinking, arms folded across his broad chest; the two of them always kept a foot apart, give or take, unless pressed.  It was nothing _personal_ , really.  They were colleagues, but not friends, and without Grey’s persistent pestering for team bonding exercises they were perfectly happy to remain that way.  (Well, Black was; it was impossible to tell how White felt about pretty much anything.  Grey had tried to quiz him about it in the past, and he’d just folded his arms and tried to stand imposingly until they laughed and left it alone.  There wasn’t a lot that intimidated them.)  
  
Intermittent huffs half-raising her shoulders, Black furrowed her brow and watched on, fingers twitching.  Of course Grey had to chat with what seemed like every damn chemist in the place - why _wouldn’t_ they?  Of _course_ everyone they’d shared more than half a second of conversation with was right within view of the elevator.  Everyone always liked Grey.  It was exhausting just to watch, nevermind imagining being like that; even contemplating the _pretense_ of caring about that many people made her head spark bright sunbursts of pain behind her eyes.  How they did it she’d never know (and she’d never admit it was impressive or a little endearing, either, because it definitely wasn’t and those were blatant lies, definitely).  
  
“Why should I care, Grey?”  It was the same back-and-forth as always; Black rebuffed Grey’s offerings of friendship, even if at this point she did it because it was routine, and Grey laughed it off because they knew she was only doing it since it had become so default.  It was easy to fall into a routine like that, all bark and no bite, and not change it until it had long since become easy as breathing.  
“He’s the genius chemist that will one day concoct the brew that could make even you bare fangs in a smile.”  And Grey was fond of Elro. Why wouldn’t they be?  It was advantageous to have a rapport with a chemist of that talent, but when he wasn’t caught up in his own head he was just respectful enough of them to not be rude, and that always felt so rare amongst workers.  Rank-and-file were persistently wary of Agents - it was for a multitude of valid reasons - but there were only so many Reborn, and the newest trio was still adjusting to their prosthetics, and oftentimes someone who didn’t look at them like they were more-than-human was a little easier.  
“Can’t you be happy with a wince?”  That was the call-and-response done, Black pretending like she’d cared enough and Grey letting her out of the question, and even with Chrome’s little lackey throwing himself into the hall with his arms flailing she could pull out of the conversation, halfway aware of White shifting his weight behind her.    
  
(Tolo eternally, perpetually, got on Black’s nerves.  His voice hit all the wrong frequencies, and listening to him _speak_ always made her ears complain, and that just made the pain intensify from whatever manageable level it’d subsided to.  Why Chrome kept him around she’d never know - honestly, she’d never know why _Chrome_ was kept around, always too busy preaching to an army of children that lapped his frenetic nonsense and scripture up like water given to a drowning man.  But Black didn’t make the decisions.  All she could do was spend as little time around him as possible.)  
  
The rest of it was all droning, vacant pleasantries exchanged back and forth, thoughts and prayers - she threw a reminder in there that they all had time off, could Grey _please_ finish up with chatting amicably about the wonders of chemistry and complimenting the fucking chemists, and went back to a stare aimed vaguely at the repeating metals of the floor - but Black was suddenly aware when Elro’s voice shifted, shivering, gaining an undercurrent she didn’t like and didn’t trust - out of the corner of her eye she watched Grey shift, hands on hips, voice suddenly chilly.    
  
He snapped about cliches, voice reedy, sharp; and Black moved forward before she knew it, one hand fisted in Grey’s shawl, pulling them around and about so that they were closer to White and she was inbetween.  An easy twirl of weight.  “Grey.  Time’s up.  We’re going.”  
  
Elro was still shaking, pupils tiny in his eyes, hands in his pockets, and -

 

and -

 

  
 and - 

  


(There are worlds where Grey dies, screaming, and Black kneels there covered in their blood and shakes and shakes and she can’t hear her own thoughts because it is so loud in her head -  
but this is not one of those worlds.)

There is a small, sudden prick of pain in her back, below her shoulders, right on her spine; the needle pierces through her coat and shirt, thin, and in a split-second it has done what it’s designed to do - she skids away from him, kicking back at one leg (Elro stumbles, almost falling, thrown off-balance), and Grey puts one hand on her shoulder for half-comfort and half-stability.  “ _What did you_ -”  
  
Grey speaks over her.  Commanding.  Their voice is chilly.  “ _What did you just hit her with_?”  Elro isn’t listening.  He sputters apologies, picks himself up and retreats back a few steps (White says something but it’s an admonishment to Elro, it doesn’t matter, but there’s something in his voice that could be worry but there isn’t any time to scrutinize it) and says nothing of value, only _sorry sorry sorry it was nothing I’ll calm down now sorry_ in variations over and over.  (In that other world, Grey is softer on him; but in that other world, Black isn’t maybe-hurt.  They worry about her so often.  She’s finally letting herself be gentle, sometimes.)  
  
(It doesn’t matter, in the end.)    
  
Black stumbles back into Grey, her legs shaking, every nerve burning, and she can’t breathe she can’t _breathe_ she can’t - where her arms attach, the skin curdles, tears, warps away like paper to a flame and it is unimaginable, it is beyond words.  She can’t hear her own thoughts.  She thinks she might be screaming, and she can feel Grey’s hands on her, steadying, holding her close; but it’s only more weight, it’s not comforting, nothing is comforting, this is beyond comfort.  They’re yelling, maybe, alternating between threats to Elro (is he here?  She can’t see him, there’s the heavy pad of footsteps, of someone running) and calling for White to get a medic, to get _someone_ , to telling her she’ll be alright but what’s happening to her, please, just tell them, Black, Black - it is the feeling of every layer of the body disassociating from each other, it is the feeling of blood boiling the veins open, she doesn’t want to die -  
  
The thought strikes her, so suddenly, that she doesn’t want to die and here she is, dying anyway, and a hundred years ago and more she would have begged for it; she would have begged to be torn apart in a way she couldn’t come back from, in a way nobody could bring her back from, so the fucking pain of living wouldn’t hurt anymore, because there is _nothing and nobody_ less important than she is.  It’s funny.  It’s so _fucking_ funny that she laughs and chokes on Ivory, her throat impossibly raw, and Grey is above her gazing down with desperate eyes; she would raise her hands to hold theirs but her fingers won’t move, her arms won’t move, and every second the tissues keeping them connected to her flesh melt further away from anything recognizable.  
  
But if she’s dying (and she knows she is, knows she’s dying on some primal level, it’s like going into the Transcender and the Ivory taking her consciousness down into the black but she won’t wake up after this she won’t wake up ever) she has to say something, she has to -  
  
“I love you,” Grey says quietly like it can make her stay, holding her still the best they can in some desperate attempt to keep her whole (it doesn’t help it doesn’t help she’s breaking herself in the struggle as every nerve fires at once and every bone melts into blood) and Black tries to smile back at them but the best she can manage is a pained grimace because the world is so bright and so loud and her eyes don’t want to work and it’s like knives, like knives, like knives and their teeth - so white - like knives - she would scream still but her throat is peeling apart, blisters forming and breaking and forming again until all the tissue ruins itself, and the messages her body will take are so few now.

They are so few.  The world is so loud and so bright and she can’t hear her own thoughts for the pain.  Everything is covered in a purple haze and the rush of her blood in her ears is so loud

Everything starts to melt, everything starts to split apart -

(grey doesn’t remember the next few minutes very well but they remember the vulnerability in black’s voice; they remember her screaming even after her voice didn’t work and it was just choking up Ivory, they remember the purple color her skin turned, they remember the horrible noise of her flesh splitting from her arms and the heavy sound of the metal dropping to the floor.  they remember having to clean the liquid from their clothes. they remember watching the red of her eyes be subsumed by Ivory white.  
  
they just can’t quite remember what it looked like when her body burst in their arms.)


End file.
